(hat tip)
Anyone who wants to complain about infringements on personal liberty in the U.S. might want to consider the U.K. for a moment.
Most of central London is surveilled (and with regards to terrorism, this surveillance failed as a deterrent) and now most of the highways are as well. Rather than using this surveillance capability to send tow trucks or identify problems, they are using the highway cameras to give tickets for unsafe driving.
This driver was stupid for what she did, but receiving a fine in the mail without ever having been pulled over by an officer or warned or having been involved in an accident is ridiculous.
Red-light cameras in the U.S. are one step in this direction and could lead to required black boxes and camera surveillance like they enjoy in Britain. Here there's pretty stiff resistance (as there should be, I guess no one should be surprised that I agree with folks at the Cato Institute, but still), in Great Britain there are pockets of resistance, but mostly the gentry seem to accept these insults without too much complaint.
You have a responsibility to drive safely, but I don't agree that the state has a right to use remote technologies to catch people in infractions (I seem to recall some amendment about probable cause, or was that Marge Simpson, I get them mixed up), even if these measures are constitutional, they suck and should be fought legislatively (some folks have come up with their own counter measures, though).
3 comments:
I take it you don't have this yet in California (too lazy to Google).
It's reality where I live. I'm always tempted to pick my nose or flip my finger while driving by, but so far I've resisted (because who the hell would really want THAT recorded)?
We've had them in L.A. for better than ten years (since at least early-mid nineties, but only at a few intersections).
There was a contract dispute with the original company so for 3 years starting in 2002 they were inoperable, but in 2005 they started up again. Other jurisdictions in the area like West Hollywood and Culver City have had them too, but not as long.
I used to work near where the first one was (possibly the first one in the U.S., Wilshire/La Cienega in L.A.) and always thought it was wrong, have seen many almost rear enders due to sudden stops (which though less fatal than a t-bone style accident at speed do produce a significant injury rate due to whiplash). Virginia legislated these cameras away after seeing accident rates increase rather than decrease (the excuse was that they were better accidents even if they were more frequent)
Most jurisdictions get around the 4th Amendment (or is that Marge Simpson?) objections by considering these tickets civil violations (like parking tickets) and don't add points to your drivers license.
The real point I was making besides that these cameras suck is that we do have a bill of rights here, unlike Great Britain where the government can institute 'safety' measures for the 'good' of the people at will without regards to silly little problems like probable cause.
(But we are the one's living under the thumb of Bu$hHitler's fascist dictatorship)
You're telling me you never hear it quacking like a duck? Oh wait, you just did ;)
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